The Visual Basic team has released two KB articles that provide information on hotfixes that address performance issues which may occur on large solutions and projects in VS2005. If you are using Visual Basic in Visual Studio 2005, and you are seeing any of the symptoms I list below, I encourage you to call Microsoft Support and see if these hotfixes address them.

Thanks for your comment. I’m the Program Manager responsible for the performance of Visual Basic 2005 and my team created this QFE.

I understand that having to call support to get a QFE is inconvenient relative to a public download. We create QFEs in order to quickly address issues that customers are experiencing in production that we did not see in testing. While QFEs are tested rigorously, they are not tested to the same level of scrutiny that we tested Visual Studio 2005 before release. Because of this, we ask that you call support to get the fix so we can track the fix over time. This fix will be publicly available in SP1, due to be released later this year.

Thanks,
Chris Mayo
Visual Basic Performance Program Manager

Eric

3 Aug 2006 1:43 PM

Chris,

Can you be more specific about the timeframe? I take it that the September release date is no longer accurate.

This QFE rule may be convenient for you, but it wastes alot of our time. I
have always found it absurd that any schmuck can download a beta OS from Microsoft, but developers must jump through hoops to get a simple fix.

Traditionally, QFE's were meant to target specific problems and were generally very narrowly defined, and tended to address issues that only applied to a very small group of users. For example:

I can see how that might not have come up in testing. I cannot see how the broad situations described in 917452 and 920805 didn't. They are environmental issues that indicate that 2005 was not ready for prime time when it was released. They represent the pain that those of who use this sloth on a daily basis experience.

Furthermore, since so many of these QFE go back to msenv.dll, your're not installing 1 hotfix, but every fix that contained that same assembly dependency that has already been released. Resharper 2.0 REQUIRES and installs one of these msenv.dll hotfixes. Kinda violates the QFE definition, doesn't it?

I agree that getting a hotfix should be much easier than it is today. We're working on making getting a hotfix roughly as quick and easy as a downloading a beta product, per your suggestion. I'll post our plans on the VB Blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/default.aspx) and this thread as they become more firm.

I did call support yesterday to get the fix myself, and it did take about 15 minutes. While this is not as quick as a web download, we've made every effort to make it quick and painless.

Let me know if you get a different experience when you call support.

Thanks,
Chris Mayo
Visual Basic Performance Program Manager

Earl Wynne

9 Sep 2006 9:36 AM

I really hope that the sp1 has a LOT more than what the hotfix does. I currently have a very large application and I spend most of my time waiting for the IDE. If only I would have known I would have stayed with the 2003 version and just made due.

I also agree that calling to get a hotfix is a big pain. I discovered on a Friday evening that you have to call, and it seems the hotfix hotline isn't even available 24-7. They are actually closed on the weekends... I had to wait till Monday to get a link to download the hotfix and the special hotline operator did nothing extra than the regular MS contact reps other than email a link. I think this is a very poor system.

The hotfix dwindle my compiling time from 5mins to 2mins. If this was the same project in VS 2003, it would take under 30 seconds.

This posts covers how to best optimize the build performance with Visual Studio 2005 when using web projects.

Joe

25 Sep 2006 11:47 AM

Chrsi,
You wrote:
"I did call support yesterday to get the fix myself, and it did take about 15 minutes. While this is not as quick as a web download, we've made every effort to make it quick and painless.

Let me know if you get a different experience when you call support."

I just called to get the Hot fix and it took 26 minutes. I was transferred on the phone 3 times. In all I had to speak with 4 reps. I gave the KB article numbers to the first rep and they were not passed on to the 2nd rep. I had to repeat them.

No one could tell me if SP1 was coming out this week or not. So I decided to get the hot fix now rather than wait.

Note: all of the reps were professional and courteous. The process itself is just time consuming.